So it’s a little it quiet at the moment, what with not much rugby on the go. Out of the blue, up pops our good friend Wes, aka wpw, with a truly superb idea. Why not run a competition to figure out who is the best Sharks fan out there? Do you eat, sleep and breathe the black and white? Do you know everything there is to know about the team – players, coaches, achievements, history and trivia? Hell, do you know the names of all of the flasher girls by heart, not to mention the shoe sizes of each and every ball boy? If so, this one’s for you.

So this is how it’s going to work. The competition will comprise five rounds of questions, starting off with the ridiculously easy and progressing to the absurdly difficult. We’ll do the first round today and then have a subsequent round every two days after that, given you lots of time to do some research and get your answers in. As the questions go up in difficulty, so do the number of points we’ll allocate to each one and we’ll obviously keep score over the five rounds and award the prize to the ultimate winner.

Prize, you say? Yes, that’s right. The winner of this competition, apart from being named Ultimate Sharks Fan and profiting from the usual haul (1000 Sharksworld points and a trophy for your user profile) will also win a signed copy of Michael Marnewick’s book, “Quest for Glory”, kindly donated by the author himself. Pretty sweet, hey? Just in case we have more than one person level on points after we’ve done all five rounds, we’ll keep throwing out tiebreak questions until somebody emerges as a clear winner.

But wait – that’s not all, as they say in the commercials. Since we’re going to be keeping a points tally here, we might as well convert those points into Sharksworld points too. At the end of the competition, we will allocate 10 Sharksworld points for every competition point you’ve earned. Simply put, if you answer just today’s questions right (getting 15 competition points) that’s already 150 Sharksworld points in the bag.

So, without further ado, let’s get started with round 1. To enter, simply click here to email your answers through and please don’t forget to include your Sharksworld user name with your entry.

Here are the 15 questions for Round 1, each of which is worth 1 point.

1 Who was the Sharks top try scorer in the 2010 Currie Cup?
2 Who is the only Sharks captain to have led the side to more than one Currie Cup trophy?
3 Why was the Sharks 2010 Currie Cup semi-final match delayed for 40 minutes?
4 Name the English flyhalf who played for the Sharks in the 2010 Super 14
5 How many Springbok rugby players has Michaelhouse produced?
6 What is Willem Alberts’ nickname?
7 Who was the head coach of the Sharks XV in 2010?
8 Which Sharks player has amassed the most test caps?
9 Which member of the Sharks squad attended high school in Wonderboom, Pretoria?
10 Which former Sharks Currie Cup player captained College Rovers to a maiden SA Club Champs victory in 2010?
11 Who were the Sharks clothing/apparel sponsor in 2010?
12 Which other Currie Cup Premier Division side has Eugene van Staden represented?
13 What is Adrian Jacobs’ middle name?
14 In which two sports did current Sharks backline coach Grant Bashford represent Natal in the 90s?
15 How many matches did the Sharks lose at ABSA Stadium in the 2010 Currie Cup?